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NAPOLEON 



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NAPOLEON 



AN ESSAY BY 

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 

TOGETHER WITH REPRODUCTIONS OF - 
FIVE ORIGINAL SKETCHES 
BY THE AUTHOR , 




PRIVATELY PRINTED 
1915 



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COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY WILLIAM B. OSGOOD FIELD 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 

COPYRIGHT IN GREAT BRITAIN, IRELAND, AND BRITISH COLONIES, AND IN 
ALL COUNTRIES UNDER THE CONVENTION, BY WILUAM B. OSGOOD FIFXD 

ENTERED AT STATIONERS* HALL 



D. B. UPDIKE THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS, BOSTON, U.S.A. 



/ 



DEC3\ 1313 

CI.A418296 



CI.A418296 ^ 



FOREWORD 

The original sketches of Napoleon from which these reproduc- 
tions are made came into my possession some years ago and are 
probably of the period when Mr. Thackeray wrote the ' ''Essay 
on Napoleon.'''' 

On acquiring the man uscript of this essay , it seemed appropriate, 
at this particular time, that I should have both reproduced for my 
friends, — a token of my sinca'e appreciation of their kindnesses 
shown to me from time to time, and of the associations that have 
afforded me such pleasure and happiness. 

My thanks are due to Mr. Charles E. Lauriat, Jr. , for his 
untiring interest and for obtaining the manuscript and letters from 
Lady Ritchie; also to Mr. Updike for his care and guiding hand 
in preparing this little volume. 



645 Fifth Avenue, JVenv York 
March, 1915 



9 St. Leonard's Terrace, 

Chelsea, S. W. 

Nov. 21. 

I have been deeply interested re-reading the MSS. and I send 

you back the notes amplified. 

I think you ought to publish this Napoleon MSS. NOfV; It 

seems so fitted to this terrible time — so noble, so terrible — 

may peace be with us! 

Yours very truly, 

ANNE RITCHIE. 

P.S. My son has been ill, but he is able to drill his men 
and to work at the Depot in Leicester. My nephew is badly 
wounded — another nephew is at the front — my friends are 
killed — but thank God they have done noble duty, and are 
doing it. 



9, St. Leonard's Terrace, 

Chelsea, S. W. 

These unpublished notes for an Essay on Napoleon must have 
been written by my Father either in 1836 when he was a 
news-paper correspondent in Paris, or as I am now inclined 
to think later on when in 1 842 & the following years he was 
contemplating a life of Talleyrand and publishing articles in 
Fraser and other Magazines. 

With what a different response one now reads this noble 
expression of feeling, from that with which in July last — only 
five months ago — I wrote the short preceding note at the re- 
quest of Mr. Lauriat. How the truth and generous fire of the 
whole goes to one's heart. He — my Father — would not have 
loved Peace as he did if he had not kindled, & as I can remem- 
ber so well, too generous valour and noble patriotic deeds over 
which I have heard him exclaim in sympathy and pride. 

I have often thought of late what would my Father have 
said about this cruel war.'' THIS is what he would have said, 
only changing the terrible indi6lment of hatred & unrighteous 
attack from the French to the German Nation. 

ANNE RITCHIE. 
November 21, 1914. 



THE MANUSCRIPT 






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THE vi6lories gained over the once unconquerable Napo- 
leon, the twenty peaceful years which have followed his 
downfal, and above all the punishment which overtook his am- 
bition and laid low his pride, have done much to obliterate in 
the minds of all the people of Europe, the hatred with which 
they once regarded him, and the troops he led. But those who 
can remember the feelings of a score of years back, will re- 
colle6l with what a fiery unanimity, all the European nations 
marshalled together to resist their common enemy, and to 
crush by the force of their union the prodigious Genius who 
had wrought so much ill upon each. As the British who had 
wrested Spain and Portugal from the grasp of his best gen- 
erals, carried their triumphant war into the territory of France, 
the northern nations similarly victorious in the gigantic com- 
bats of Leipzig and Dresden, poured their immense horde 
across the Rhine, followed and fought the great Warrior until 
he could fight no more, and still respefting his genius and mis- 
fortunes consigned him to an honorable exile. 

We all know how he returned from his exile, and how it 

once more became necessary for Europe to arm, and tear the 

sword from his hand, and dash the crown from his head ; and 

if ever there was a cause, which since the time of the crusades, 

C 1.9 ] 



united all Christendom together, it was that which assembled 
the AUies in 1815, and overthrew for ever the hopes and 
power of Napoleon. 

In our own country the feeling against him was strong : but 
we had no defeats or insults to avenge, such as all other Euro- 
pean Powers had received from him, and vehement as was 
our resistance to our enemy, it was little compared with the 
hatred felt by the Northern countries against the oppressor. 

In Germany especially the crusade against Napoleon was 
not merely a national cause, adopted by Princes and Govern- 
ments, but seemed to be the cause of each individual man, for 
scarcely one but in his own person or that of some one near 
and dear to him, had suffered wrong and indignity at the hands 
of the French invader, and peaceful men were known to take 
the musket, and poor widows to send away their only sons 
bidding them to stake their lives for the putting down the 
General Tyrant. 

With the great interests then at stake, this story has little 
to do: we have only to tell of a few humble people whom fate 
has bound up with the great events that then took place. 

And ( it need scarcely be said here, but that the subje6l can't 

C 20 J 



be too strongly or too often urged) — it is not only the ruin 
and wretchedness of the day and of the a61:ual participators of 
the war which people have to fear: but the brutal prejudices 
it brings with it, the accursed legacy of hatred which it leaves 
behind it: and which obstruct progress and freedom, and mar 
and kill wholesome enterprize and honest thought, for long 
ages after the quarrel is said to be ended, and the swords are in 
their sheaths. We have conquered Napoleon — it is very well. 
Some few hundreds of old men still are alive and wear a red 
ribbon for that service, and a little medal hanging to it: but the 
fury of hatred is not dead yet, and for five and twenty years 
past has interposed a thousand times when the benefits of 
the two nations were in question — blackening with suspicion 
every honest attempt at conciliation, and thwarting every 
kindly simple plan of mutual interest. [With the old Imperial 
party, now almost extin6l, and scarcely more numerous than 
the old Waterloo medal-wearers with us, the feeling of hatred 
was manly at least and therefore pardonable, but it would be 
well, if the French could be brought to see who else have been 
the chief propagators of the Anti-English cry. Every man 
takes it up as he goes into opposition: Thiers, Barrot, Berryer 
each addresses himself to the public and appeals to what is 

C 21 ] 



called the national feeling — national is the word — for shame 
that any nation should be so ungenerous as to make hatred a 
national question.]] 

On marble slabs, in the humble httle church of Waterloo, 
the reader has very likely seen the catalogue of the names 
of the English officers who died there. The names of the pri- 
vate men, who fell upon that day and did their duty to the full 
as well, are not mentioned; it was thought either that such 
humble persons did not merit, living or dead to keep company 
with gentlemen bearing His Majesty's commission, or that the 
cost of marble would be too great: — in fa6l a pyramid would 
scarcely have been big enough to chronicle the names of these 
poor fellows. 

If however some obituary of the kind could be kept of 
armies and regiments: it would form wholesome and instruc- 
tive though riot perhaps agreeable reading, and might ( please 
God every year with less and less cost) be published at no 
very great charges as a Supplement to the Gazette. Leaving 
out the cause of the battles and their issue, the compiler should 
state simply the name and age of the slain soldier, the manner 
of wound of which he died, the names of his near relatives, and 

[ 22 ] 



birth place. "John Thompson. 24. received a musket ball in 
the thigh at Tezna. limb amputated same day : died of the op- 
eration: born at Taunton in Somersetshire — only son of Jane 
Thompson now resident there. Has left a widow and three 
children." A very common imagination could supply from this 
outline the necessary details — the way in which John Thomp- 
son feels as he storms a height on which some Afghans are 
mustered, — exchanging his hurrah for a curse as he drops and 
the column marches over him, — the agonies of his wound as 
he lies on the field — the agonies of the operation and the fever 
and death subsequent to it — the agonies of his mother the 
widow, of his wife the widow too; the wonder of the children 
and possibly the ensuing beggary of the whole family, might 
all be very easily pourtrayed to the mind, and thereto at least 
in common fairness be presented to it, as well as that pi6lure 
of triumphs and te-deums, knighthoods, gun-firing, and parlia- 
mentary gratitude, which follow upon the successful exertions 
of some thousands of more or less lucky John Thompsons. 

Thoughts of this nature, are especially of late much more 
common in England than when we were engaged thirty years 
since in the French war, but with our neighbours the warlike 
spirit seems to be still almost as strong as ever: at least it is 

C 23 ] 



so strong that every demagogue in his turn has but to cry 
revenge and he finds half a million of echoes to his cry: and 
since the defeats of the Empire, it has been the cowardly tac- 
tics of every party in opposition to raise this shameful outcry 
in its own favor. 



FIVE ORIGINAL SKETCHES 
BY THACKERAY 



109 St. George's Sq., 

April 6 

Dear Sir 

My father drew the pi6lures of Napoleon somewhere about 
1 852 in Young Street. He must have been thinking of writing 
a le6lure on the early Caricaturists but he never carried it out. 

Yours truly, 

ANNE RITCHIE. 



The original Sketch measures 11 Vg by 17'^/ -2 inches 



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The original Sketch measures S'/j by 11 '/g inches 



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TTie original Sketch measures 6 V4 by 7^U inches 



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Seventy-Jive copies of this book were printed byD. B. Updike 
The Merrymount Press, Boston, in the month oj March, 1915 



